1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document processing apparatus and a method using thereof which process multi-color image information, for example, a wordprocessor capable of making a color document, a color copying machine or a color printer.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
By the use of a computer system including a color scanner, a color printer or a color copying machine, circumstances under which an end user can make a color document need to be simplified. There is the converting a monochrome document previously made or a document sent by a facsimile into a color document, and in particular, there is a great demand for color conversion of tables or graphs since they will be more understandable by coloring.
With respect to the tables or graphs already colored, there are also the cases where color arrangements should be changed if they serve a different purpose from what it was when they were made. For example, if a point of emphasis is changed, the color arrangements of tables or graphs are required to be changed in accordance with the change of the point of emphasis. In such case, there is the need for the change of colors with ease according to the purpose.
To satisfy the above-described needs, an invention has been disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. Hei. 6-215099 (1994), which colors a table on every alternate lines or every alternate rows, or colors a particular line or row for the purpose of emphasizing. If this idea is applied to graphs, appropriate color arrangements can be provided for a graphic element of a bar graph or a pie graph for making it easily understandable. Here, the "graphic element" refers to every visual element representing a value shown by the graph, namely, a bar in the bar graph, a sector in the pie graph, a segment in the line graph, a rectangle in the stacked bar graph, a ball in the ball graph, a box in the box graph (used for representation of a stock price fluctuation), or the like.
However, the conventional art described above is intended to color the table or graph in accordance with layout information, and therefore it cannot perform coloring based on meanings indicated by the table or graph.
For example, it is assumed that a user desires to color the at least one cell having a particular value for easy distinction, but the invention disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication No. Hei. 6-215099 (1994) changes the color of the table per every alternate line or every alternate rows and cannot comply with such request.
In the case of the graph, for example, a bar graph showing sales, requests for changing a color of at least one bar representing a specific value or more to emphasize such a bar are frequently advanced. In another example, if the fluctuation of shares of every company in a specific field is to be represented by plural pie graphs, sectors indicating shares of the respective companies are generally arranged in order of sharing rank in a clockwise direction, where it is desired that a particular color is used for each company in all pie graphs. However, no conventional art seems to comply with the above requests.